Many optometrists are exhausted trying to keep their heads above water. In fact, over half of you reading this probably feel you are headed for burnout. If not, you might still be in the honeymoon stage typical of the first five years of practice. Optometry is one of the greatest health care professions to be in–I wouldn’t trade it for any other. However, the red tape and guidelines of meaningful use and HIPAA compliance are testing everyone’s sanity. In the midst of the chaos, many ODs are finding themselves so focused on the peripherals that they don’t realize the quality of patient care is slowly eroding.

Here are 3 ways to keep patient care your top priority:

1. Reminders – Daily remind yourself that you are in the clinical to help people see better. It doesn’t matter if you are simply updating a glasses prescription or referring a patient to a retinal specialist because you detected a clinically significant macular edema. You must not forget that the measure for success at the end of the day is not how much money you made, but how you helped people. Put a sign on your desk that constantly reminds you that patient care is first priority.
2. Success stories – Be on the lookout for stories of patients whose lives were changed because their vision was improved. We spend our days putting out fires and fixing the squeaky wheel. Consequently, many of the stories we hear are the negative ones. Grab onto the positive stories. Play those over in your head and talk about them with staff. Those stories will be a constant reminder of why you do what you do.
3. Intentional scheduling – Enter your schedule into your mobile device calendar and dump it from your mind. My mentor taught me about the power of mind dumping and it has eliminated the anxiety that used to plague me. He taught me the principles of taking all the tasks I was juggling in my mind and putting them down on a to do list or calendar. Schedule everything. To find sanity and get your mind off of non-patient care concerns, block out two hours a week to focus on meaningful use compliance, HIPAA compliance, and all other non-patient care issues. This will allow you to free your mind to keep patient care as top priority.

Addressing “peripheral issues” and keeping in mind that they truly are peripheral will help you avoid the regret of building a practice that lacks the heart of patient care.